Bumpy ride on Mango bridge to end
- Jusco repairs 800-metre stretch that links steel city with NH-33

ANIMESH BISOEE

Jusco workers repair the bridge in Mango on Wednesday. (Bhola Prasad)

The country’s first planned industrial township has a plan to end the bumpy ride on the battered bridge that links Jamshedpur with NH-33.

The civic utility wing of Tata Steel, Jusco, has taken up the task of plugging potholes and craters that had surfaced on the 800-metre Jayprakash Narayan Setu (popularly known as Mango bridge). Though the bridge does not come under Jusco’s command area, it has taken the job as a part of its corporate social responsibility. The repair work, which started on Thursday, is likely to be over by August 11.

The Telegraph on July 23 had highlighted (Bumpy ride on battered bridge to elite city) how poor upkeep and heavy traffic load had taken a toll on the health of this bridge.

The Rs 6-crore bridge was built in 1996 by the undivided Bihar government. It came under the jurisdiction of the state road construction department after Jharkhand was born in 2000 and, currently, connects the city to densely populated Mango and NH-33. Almost all long-distance buses from Sitaramdera terminus to Odisha, Bengal and Bihar as well as Ranchi and other parts of the state use the bridge.

In 2012, Tata Steel subsidiary Jusco had plugged the potholes following a request from the East Singhbhum district administration. However, traffic burden — more than 1,50,000 private, public and commercial vehicles ply on the bridge every day — poor upkeep and heavy rain have once again triggered the bumpy rides.

Jusco spokesperson Rajesh Rajan confirmed that the road construction division was entrusted with the responsibility. “We had planned to repair the bridge without waiting for the administration’s request,” the spokesperson said. He added that the department has outsourced the job to RK Construction. The firm has deployed a 20-member team to get the work done as fast as possible.

“This bridge requires wearing course, as the top layer has been weathered in patches by heavy traffic. We will fill up the potholes and craters and lay around 40 to 50mm of bituminous concrete,” said a senior official of the road construction division of Jusco.

Since parts of this 800-metre gateway to the steel city will be out of bounds for a few days, Jusco thought of repairing the adjacent old Mango bridge so that traffic could be diverted. The repair work of this old bridge was completed on Thursday. The old bridge was repaired with a top layer of bituminous concrete while the potholes and craters were filled with bituminous macadam at a cost of Rs 7.5 lakh.